How to ruin Christmas

Actor turned vicar Natalie Garrett, recounts the perils of being a Christmas Pro.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

A nativity seen with wooden figures and hay, amidst which a cat sits in the manger.

Nativity cat, Warsaw, 2012.

Kacper Pempel.

So, during the years of my acting career, I always avoided Panto (oh yes I did). Not because I don’t like Panto, I love a good Panto. But because I didn’t want to work over Christmas. How God will have chortled at that great irony, knowing as he did that as of 2005 (the year I got ordained), I would be working every Christmas for the rest of time.

Christmas is different now. Not only am I ordained, I’m married to a vicar. I’m completely immersed in professional Christmas. And Christmas is a bit different when you’ve turned pro. I won’t go so far as to say that being ordained has ruined Christmas, but it’s certainly changed it. But so has (supposedly) being a grown up.

My “Proper Christmas” will always be the Christmas that I grew up with (is that just me?). I had traditional preparing-for-Christmas jobs that I did every year on Christmas Eve eve: polishing the special cutlery we only used once a year, making the brandy butter (which is a bit odd now I think about it, being that heavily involved with brandy from the age of six) and decorating The Tree. And having the annual argument with my sister about whose turn it was to take the present to our neighbours across the road. And eating a lot of satsumas. And chocolate. And seeing my cousins and playing Trivial Pursuit. All of which looks very rosy seen through the eyes of a child. Christmas is different when you’re ordained and you have to work, but it’s also very different when you’re the grown up.

I used to think my mother made a ridiculous amount of fuss about Christmas. I am now that same mother. I think it’s Michael McIntyre who does a whole routine about women starting to write their Christmas To Do lists in October and endlessly shrieking, “there’s so much to do!” That’s me folks. Christmas as a grown up – or at least for this grown up – feels like there’s so much to do!

I always imagine (unhelpfully fantasize) that Other People’s families are living the Christmas dream – the relaxed, cosy evenings drinking hot chocolate or eggnog in front of a roaring fire; laughing and playing wholesome games happily and peacefully with their angelic children, wearing matching Christmas jumpers. In the cold light of day, I realise that, actually, most people find Christmas stressful for a million different reasons. It’s not all twinkly and bright.

For many people, Christmas means seeing all the family that they avoid during the rest of the year. It means spending money they can ill-afford on presents that may not be wanted. Christmas means missing the people who aren’t with us anymore. It means endless advertising campaigns suggesting that you aren’t living the perfect life – but that if you buy a new sofa, you’ll salvage the ruins of your life just in time for a perfect, twinkly Christmas.

And so the life of the mythical twinkly, “magical” Christmas lives on. With little or no reference to its origin story.

I was the chaplain at a Church of England secondary comprehensive school for seven years. In my first term, putting together the carol service, I asked a class chapel rep if she would do one of the Bible readings. “Oh, is Christmas in the Bible?” Huh. Another conversation I had went along the lines of, “Miss, I don’t believe in Jesus and all that religious stuff. But I believe in the spirit of Christmas.” Huh.

There’s a song in the staged musical version of the film Nativity, which is to all intents and purposes a Christmas prayer. But instead of the prayer being directed at God, it is directed at Father Christmas;

Dear Father Christmas, make our wish come true

Dear Father Christmas send your spirit through

There are Children in the world who need you way more than we do

But Father Christmas, we still believe in you

Dear Father Christmas make our wish come true

Which brings me to a difficult moment in my Christmassy life. I have a parenting policy that demands that I tell my children the truth. Whatever the question, if I know the answer, I will give it to them honestly. So, when my children were around the ages of four and six, in the middle of Sainsbury’s, with both children piled into the trolley, in mid-November, surrounded by early Christmas-abilia, one of my children asked me, “Mummy, does Father Christmas really exist?”. (SPOILER ALERT!!). I had to give an honest answer. If the question had been less straight, if there had been any wriggle room at all, I would have fudged it. But a straight question deserved a straight answer. Which, wide-eyed, they went and shared with their friends. A crowd of angry parents from their Primary school came to church to complain that the Vicar’s children had ruined Christmas.

But my point was that if I were to tell my children that I believe Father Christmas exists and that he grants Christmas wishes, were they ever to find out that I had lied (ahem), how would they trust me when I say that I believe Jesus does exist and that he does answer prayers? The challenge has lived with me ever since: how to keep Christmas rooted in Christ without ruining the Christmas magic.

Well, my saving grace is that I’m still a sucker for a bit of Christmas schmaltz. The theologically sensitive part of me absolutely abhors Away in a Manger (“no crying he makes”? Really? He was a new-born baby, of course he cried!!) and Little Donkey (in the Bible accounts there is absolutely no mention of donkeys at all. Not a single one – not on the road, not in the stable. No cows, no donkeys.) But light some candles, get the children singing and I have tears pouring down my face with the best of them, loving every moment.

But that still doesn’t mean that the essence of Christmas is the twinkly magic. Because, of course, the first Christmas was neither twinkly nor magic. Nor did it involve a perfectly curated tablescape (which I also love at Christmas). It didn’t involve any the stereotypical Christmassy things that we all get stressed about and love in equal measure. The first Christmas was messy and difficult. But it was also the most real, most genuinely joyous event in human history. Apart from Easter. Don’t get me started on chocolate bunnies….

Snippet

Character

Comment

Politics

9 September 2025

3 min read

After Angela, who's next?

Rayner’s resignation should prompt politicians to pause

Jean Kabasomi

Jean is a consultant working with financial and Christian organisations. She also writes and broadcasts.

Angela Rayner pauses while delivering a speech

x.com/mhclg

The dust is settling after the resignation of Angela Rayner, British Deputy Prime Minister. It’s not yet clear if her downfall will be fatal for her long-term political ambition. However, the manner of it had me muttering to myself. ‘If you live by the sword, you die by the sword.’ We all make mistakes. Angela Rayner made a mistake and it is clear that she broke the ministerial code. Do I think she should have resigned? It’s not as clear cut. Yes and no.

Yes, because I think we need our politicians to maintain the highest standards. I think she should have resigned as soon as she realised, she had made the mistake. She probably didn’t need to wait for the conclusion of the ethics investigation.

At the same time, no, because I don’t think it was a deliberate attempt to dodge paying the right amount of stamp duty. Instead, she greatly underestimated the significance and implications of not seeking the relevant tax advice. I am sure, some of us have seen those, ‘this is not legal/tax/financial advice’ statements on communications from banks and lawyers. and chose to ignore them, thinking they apply to someone else and not specifically us.

But as follower of politics, I remember Angela Rayner regularly lambasted Conservative minsters for similar tax infringements. There was never any consideration for the families of those ministers or the impact of her accusations on the mental health or careers of said politicians. Sadly, her actions have come back to haunt her and, as is to be expected, led to cries of hypocrisy. That’s why the Prime Minister had no choice but to accept her resignation. If she (and the Labour Party more generally) had been less combative and judgemental, and focused less on highlighting class and wealth differences, Angela Rayner may not have had to fall on her sword? Maybe an apology would have been enough? Many of us sympathise with her complex caring responsibilities and agree that the tax system is unnecessarily complicated. There could have been grace. But if you live by the sword, you will eventually die by the sword.

This whole episode has reminded me of the importance of treating people as I would like to be treated. We are all prone to making mistakes. We are all guilty of hypocrisy both intentionally and unintentionally. That doesn’t mean we can’t speak truth or hold people to account.

In the last week, every major political Party leader has been asked to comment on Angela Rayner and her purchase of an £800k flat in Hove hundreds of miles away from her constituency. I was impressed by Ed Davey’s (Leader of the Liberal Democrats) response to this ‘Hovegate’ saga. He was graceful, acknowledging the difficulty Rayner faced balancing a huge job alongside her caring and parental responsibilities, and the complexities of the tax system. But at the same time, accepted that politicians ought to be held to the highest ethical standards. He tried to shine a light on the underlying policy issues Rayner’s resignation rests on, and how to fix them.

Wouldn’t be great if this incident led to real conversations about policy reform to stamp duty and parent/carer responsibilities instead of party-political machinations? What if our politicians spent a little bit of time thinking about what it would be like to live in the opposing team’s shoes? We might just get better politics and policy.

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